The best capture card for PC gaming in 4K is Elgato's 4K60 Pro, or at least it was until today. At Gamescom, Elgato announced a newer model, the 4K60 Pro MK.2, which retains the same features as it predecessors while adding HDR10 support. It's also cheaper to boot.
Elgato's asking price is $249.99. Assuming it works the same (but with added functionality), it's a far better value, compared to the $399.99 MSRP of the now-old model. It's also cheaper than AVerMedia's competing Live Gamer 4K, another 4K HDR capture card, which currently sells for $290.99 on Amazon.
"4K HDR10 capture at 60fps lets you play high-fidelity games while simultaneously streaming to Twitch in 1080p at 60fps and recording 4K60 HDR10 footage to your hard drive. Instant Gameview technology lets you monitor your capture feed with ultra-low latency, perfectly syncing your broadcast with your gameplay," Elgato explains.
You might not be interested in capturing HDR content, but if that's the case, you can still play games in HDR while capturing in SDR. That's not possible on the previous model—it lacks an HDR passthrough.
It's also a physically smaller card—Corsair says it's less than half the size of the first-gen 4K60 Pro. That might not matter much with a regular size ATX case, but could come into play if you're cramming one of these inside a compact build.
Other features are pretty much the same, including the ability to capture 1080p gameplay at up to 240Hz. Likewise, users can install more than one of these cards inside a PC to capture video from multiple devices. It's a feature that will apply to a smaller subset of users, but where it applies, the cheaper price tag makes this a more viable option.
The 4K60 Pro MK.2 is available now.
